Thumb Butte
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 29 of the next 30 nights read 15:56 UTC
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Thumb Butte Group Picnic Area is a convenient place for groups of up to 100 people to enjoy a day outdoors. The site is located under the towering pines of Prescott National Forest about 4 miles west of Prescott, and provides easy access to a variety of trails and amenities. It offers a year-round pavilion and a quiet, shaded setting for luncheons, church gatherings, family picnics and other large functions. To make reservations click on the availability button to the right to book this site or call 1 (877) 444-6777. For general Thumb Butte site questions contact the Bradshaw Ranger District at 1 (928) 443-8000. Keep reading
Recreation
The Thumb Butte area is popular for hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and horseback riding. Many trails can be found within a short walk or drive, including two that ascend Thumb Butte. Horseshoe pits are available at the picnic site; visitors interested in playing should bring their own horseshoes.
Facilities
The picnic site is equipped with 12 picnic tables, 1 serving table, a covered picnic shelter, four charcoal grills and one campfire ring. There is designated parking (gated area) for 26 standard size vehicles. Guests have the convenience of restrooms with flush toilets and drinking water. The area is lighted after dark, and electric outlet(s) (20 amp maximum) are provided. Trash collection is limited and guests are encouraged to pack out their own trash.
Natural Features
The facility is set in a ponderosa pine forest at an elevation of 5,700 feet, at the base of the Thumb Butte rock formation and adjacent to Miller Creek. The forest is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including deer, mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, lizards, snakes and birds. Summer temperatures are pleasant, and winter is cool to cold with occasional snow. Afternoon thunderstorms are possible from late June through mid-September.
Nearby Attractions
Restaurants, shopping, historic sites and many amenities are nearby in the historic town of Prescott.
What the agency tells you
Hours vary seasonally: April, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; May - August, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.; September - October, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Click here for more information about Prescott National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…vehicles. Guests have the convenience of restrooms with flush toilets and drinking water. The area is lighted after dark,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…of restrooms with flush toilets and drinking water. The area is lighted after dark, and electric…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Climbing
- Hiking
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 8.1 km away
- Patchy color
Full this Saturdayread 15:56 UTC
The agency files 2 records here and marks every one of them day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in. How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 19. read 15:56 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 10
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 4
recreation.gov availability, read 15:56 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
2 records · the site map
All 2 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 2 of the 2 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Alto Pit OHV CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 3.4 mi
Yavapai CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 3.6 mi
White Spar CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 4.0 mi
Groom Creek SchoolhousePrescott National Forest · 7.5 mi
Groom Creek Horse CampPrescott National Forest · 7.5 mi
Lower Wolf Creek CampgroundPrescott National Forest · 7.6 miFrom Phoenix, Arizona: Traveling Northbound on I-17 take Exit 262 onto Hwy 69 North to Prescott and cointnue on Hwy 69 for 41 miles. Once you have arrived in Prescott, continue to go west on Hwy 69 which turns into Gurley St., which then becomes the Thumb Butte Road, and travel 2.2 miles to the picnic area entrance.
Alternate route from Flagstaff, Arizona: Traveling Southbound on I-17 take Exit 278 onto Westbound Highway 169 and continue for 15 Miles until reaching the junction of Hwy 69, turn right onto Northbound Hwy 69 and continue for 15 miles until arriving in Prescott. Once you have arrived in Prescott, continue to go west on Hwy 69 which turns into Gurley St, which then becomes the Thumb Butte Road, and travel 2.2 miles to the picnic area entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Prescott, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 40°F, day 73°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 24°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Thumb Butte is in Arizona’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Eli Crane (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyElijah CraneU.S. Representative · Arizona’s 2nd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMark KellyU.S. Senator · Arizona
- Your senator, on the same appropriationRuben GallegoU.S. Senator · Arizona
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-224-4521.
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Elijah Crane, I’m a constituent in Arizona’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Thumb Butte is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Thumb Butte keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Thumb Butte. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Thumb Butte (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Mark Kelly, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Thumb Butte is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Thumb Butte keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Thumb Butte. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Thumb Butte (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona
Dear Ruben Gallego, I’m a constituent in Arizona. I tried to camp at Thumb Butte, Prescott National Forest, Arizona, and couldn’t. Every site at Thumb Butte is reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Thumb Butte keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Thumb Butte. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Thumb Butte (Prescott National Forest, Arizona) via campanac.com